Adware, as you may have already guessed, is an advert-related form of malware. Such malware essentially spams your Mac with ads, mostly when using the browser, through extensions and other malicious software that causes pop-ups and browser redirects.
Redirects is where you’re redirected to unwanted search engines when using the browser. Perhaps you rely on Google for asking questions, but now you’re being sent to Bing or somewhere with lots of adverts. These ads can also be malicious when clicked on, and the extensions downloaded as a result of the malware can monitor your sensitive data.
So, now we’ve figured out what it is, let’s look at how to remove adware from Mac.
How to remove adware from Mac
First and foremost, we can simply scan our entire mac for all sorts of malware using anti-virus software. This will be the fastest way to detect known adware, and it will also help us remove it. It’s important to remember though, if the software does remove the malware, your browser(s) will still be messed up.
The default homepage, search engine, and operating extensions will be skewed and this will need to be manually corrected. To do this, simply open up Safari and head to Preferences. Under the Search tab, change the default search engine, and under the General tab, change the homepage.
Finally, it’s vitally important that you delete any extensions that you did not install yourself. Find these under Preferences > Extensions within Safari. But, make sure to do the previous instructions with any and all browsers that you use.
Remove malicious applications
Under Go, click on Applications in order to scan your currently downloaded apps. Within this list, you may find some adware that the anti-virus software didn’t pick up. Any suspicious applications you can remove by sending to Trash. Do the same with your Downloads folder, and also check the file locations of (Go > Go to Folder):
- /Library/LaunchAgents
- /Library/LaunchDaemons
- /System/Library/LaunchAgents
- /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
If you want to be doubly sure that you have detected everything, you can head to your Login Items to see if there are any unwanted programs that are currently being booted every time you turn on your Mac. To do this, head to the Apple menu, press System Preferences then click on Users & Groups. Under your current user, click on Login Items and see if there are any unwanted programs here – there should be very few if you want your Mac to have optimal performance. Press on the minus button to remove them, but also take a note of their name as you will have to search and delete that program on the Mac.
Finally, you can also check your Activity Monitor. This is the final place you can check for unwanted programs that are running in the background. Head to your Applications folder, then your Utilities folder, and finally double click on the Activity Monitor. The list of background processes will be presented, which you can order by how much of the CPU they consume. Force quit them, but again, take a note of their name and hunt them down from there.